Opinion: NEET Controversy Mirrors Himachal Pradesh's Past Paper Leak Scandals

After questions being raised over various institutions conducting examinations across the country, selection processes are under scrutiny. Conducting entrance or recruitment exams for a large number of candidates using new scientific processes in the computer age is itself challenging. Until the allegations against NTA regarding NEET exams are proven or deserving students get selected, not only will there be a delay, but the mental state of children will be so adversely impacted that it is impossible to fathom.

Whether entrance exams or recruitment exams, if there are any allegations, there must definitely be a thorough investigation and the governments must fix responsibility. Otherwise, the courage of professional paper leakers will keep rising. It is a different matter that the Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has admitted that there were irregularities in the NEET recruitment. Admitting the truth was also his duty. 

However, no official system has the right to play with the lives of lakhs of children. In fact, whenever any kind of entrance exam is conducted and the number of candidates runs into lakhs, every agency adopts a different method of conducting the exam. UGC has a different pattern and NTA has a different one, while at the state level, selection agencies conduct exams differently. Similarly, the exam process of State Selection Commissions or State Public Service Commissions or UPSC is also different.

When everyone adopts new methods, flaws are natural to occur. It is these flaws that paper leakers are exploiting. It has been observed that the officers responsible for conducting the exams often portray most of the processes as confidential. These are limited to a few individuals, lacking transparency. This is where the possibility of irregularity arises.

In Himachal Pradesh too, there was an MBBS exam scam in Himachal Pradesh University in the year 2006. NEET-like processes did not exist then. Although the paper leak was exposed in 2006, who knows since when doctors recruited through cheating have been practicing at big hospitals. It is an irony that the former accused could not be caught due to lack of evidence. It is also important to know that scams come to light only when they are caught.

The doctor recruitment scam is one issue, but in recent years, Himachal Pradesh, a small state, has seen a spate of recruitment scams. From 2021 to 2022, two major scams took place – the Patwari recruitment scam and the Police Constable recruitment scam. The BJP govt  was in power in the state at that time. After that, the paper leak was exposed at the State Selection Commission in Hamirpur. In all these cases, more than 9 lakh youths from Himachal Pradesh had applied for various exams.

All of these were Class III exams with no interviews or any other external assessment basis. When the SIT and CBI investigated, it was revealed how a large network was involved in paper leaks. Didn't the government get any hint of this? Or wasn't the exam conducting agency aware of any flaws? In any case, capable students lost their time, and several major questions arose. 

For instance thousands  of applications were received for police constable recruitment – these were the people who were supposed to catch thieves. Did the government get the police department itself to conduct their exam? The police department is not an exam conducting agency, nor is the revenue department an agency for Patwari recruitment exams.

Similarly, the medical university was entrusted with doctor recruitment. As soon as one scam after another was exposed, influential people could have been held accountable, but new exams were hastily conducted, and the matter was buried.

In fact, universities, education boards, or state public service commissions are institutions accustomed to conducting exams either on line or offline. Their rules of business, syllabi, or multi-layer protection mechanisms are defined. Changes are made to the rules over time. In such cases, the revenue department or the police department does not have a confidential team, facilities for question paper printing, computer-based checking  etc., and they have to outsource. In such a scenario, it is highly unlikely that the officers or the government were unaware of the flaws in the exam system.

The biggest joke was played on the candidates at the Hamirpur State Selection Commission three years ago . As soon as the government changed, the state vigilance caught those involved in paper leaks. Here, the question paper selling racket had been going on for who knows how long, involving the very employees who had been working in the same office for a long time. Wasn't anyone aware of this irregularity? Why didn't the authorities or the government notice it then?

It was an excellent decision to dissolve the Hamirpur State Selection Commission. But the big question is why this action by the vigilance was not taken before the elections? Probably because along with the constable and Patwari scams, the issue would have become heated. In the past, bizarre cases have also surfaced where advertisements were issued to fill 300 posts, but 378 posts were filled.

The action on these incidents that mock the youth and raise questions is mere lip service. Didn't it occur to the policymakers that the same individuals have been working for thirty years in confidential tasks at any recruitment agency? Where will the question papers be printed, who will print them, who will keep them in their custody, will the exam centers be the same repeatedly, what will be the parameters for printing question papers, transportation , answer keys sheets ,what is the question bank, etc.? For years, the same few people have known and done this, as happened in the Hamirpur State Selection Commission.  

The Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission so far been spared from paper leak cases. In this commission, members and chairpersons come for a fixed tenure and have no direct connection with the secrecy. However, the officers and employees sitting in various branches here are not in the transfer cadre. There are over 100 such employees who can never be transferred and are solely responsible for exam centers. 

It is also an irony that in such institutions where employees have to be recruited for higher positions, their selection is directly linked to these permanent employees who are either third-grade pass or working in clerical jobs. In other words, those involved in the exam process have the lowest educational qualifications compared to the candidates appearing for those positions.

Systemic flaws will not wait for a major disaster to occur. Recent examples like NEET, Hamirpur Commission, Patwari, Constable, and MBBS recruitment scams, when taken together, clearly point to the government's negligence regarding the flaws. The surprising thing is that the leaders of the very governments under which scams took place do not speak about the scams but only raise slogans of expediting recruitments, making it a political issue in every street.

The Hamirpur Selection Commission scam and other scams like Patwari or Constable directly fall under the responsibility of those ruling. The story of irregularity can end with strict rules. Political parties should also block the back-door entries.

In Himachal Pradesh, the previous BJP government decided to have direct recruitment of doctors in the health department, meaning they do not have to appear for an entrance exam. The medical university will directly call them and hand over the job letter, whether the student has studied from a paid seat in Ukraine or a college in China. The NEET paper leak case is not the only instance of cheating. The governments themselves will have to fix this system through strict rules, especially after the recurring scams in Himachal Pradesh.

Views expressed in the article are solely writer's opinions. 

By Dr. Rachna Gupta (writer is Senior Journalist and Former Member, Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission).